Mary Searches for a Dead Jesus

John 20:1-20

• OPEN: I’m going to name 4 characters in a famous TV show and then I’m going to ask you to name that show. Ready? Bert and Ernie, The Cookie Monster, & Big Bird Name that show! (Sesame Street).

• Now, if you got that right, do you also remember a character from that show named “Mr. Hooper”? In 1997, the producers of Sesame Street were faced with a dilemma. The actor who played the popular “Mr. Hooper” had passed away, and the producers were faced with how to communicate the concept of death to the 10 million children (most of whom are under 6) who watch the show. So they consulted with some child psychologists on how they should handle it.

• The Child psychologists suggested they NOT say, “Mr. Hooper got sick and died,” because children get sick and they are not going to die. And the psychologists suggested they NOT say, “Mr. Hooper got old and died,” because little children think of their parents as being old. And the staff of Sesame Street decided to AVOID religious issues and not say, “Mr. Hooper died and went to Heaven.” The show’s producers decided to say just a few basics: He’s gone, he won’t be back, and he’ll be missed.

• The day of the show, Big Bird came out on the stage and said he had a picture for Mr. Hooper and he couldn’t wait to see him. But someone said, “Big Bird, remember, we told you that Mr. Hooper died.” And Big Bird said, “Oh yeah, I forgot.” Then he said, “Well, I’ll give it to him when he comes back.” And one of the people put an arm around Big Bird and said, “Big Bird, Mr. Hooper isn’t coming back.” “Why not,” Big Bird asked innocently. “Big Bird, when people die, they don’t come back.”

• “When people die, they don’t come back.” What a sad and tragic thing to teach children.

• Now Sesame Street was a secular show. It’s Public Television and they’re generally not into God or Jesus or people going to heaven. And they’re definitely not into people rising from the dead.

• A survey a few years ago by the Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University found that most Americans do not believe they will experience a resurrection of their bodies when they die. When asked, "Do you believe that, after you die, your physical body will be resurrected someday?" · Only 36 % of adults surveyed said "yes" · 54 % said they did not believe, · and 10 percent were undecided.

• Down thru the ages many people have expressed the opinion that death is final. Back in the days of ancient Greece the poet Aeschylus (ˈiːskᵻləs) wrote: “Once a man dies, there is no resurrection.” The Greek Philosopher Theocritus wrote: “There is hope for those who are alive, but those who have died are without hope.”

• There’s something about death that seems (pause) permanent… and tragic.

• Sigmund Freud, thought of as the father of modern psychology, wrote: “And finally there is the painful riddle of death, for which no remedy at all has yet been found, nor probably will ever be!”

• Abraham Lincoln was haunted by this same doubt. In her book about Lincoln "Team Of Rivals" Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote that when Anne (Lincoln’s first true love died) a friend asked him whether he believed in a future realm, he answered: “I’m afraid there isn’t... It isn’t a pleasant thing to think that when we die that is the last of us.”

• There’s something about death that seems permanent.

• So, when Luke 24 (a mirror text to the one from John 20 we read today) tells us the women came to Jesus’ grave to finish preparing his body for burial, they didn’t expect to see Jesus alive. But when they found the tomb empty and an angel told them He’d risen they went to the Apostles and told them the good news.

• But the Apostles didn’t expect to see Jesus alive either.

• Luke 24:9-11 tells us…

• Yes, Jesus had said He would arise from the grave on the 3rd day, but they didn’t really believe it. Death was somehow permanent.

• But, having heard the words of Mary Magdalene and the other women John and Peter ran to the grave to check it out for themselves.

• John was a little faster. He arrived at the tomb just before Peter did and when he looked inside he saw that it was empty. Empty except for the strips of linen laying there, and the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head.

• Now this is from the Gospel of John, and John tells us that something about the scene convinced him that the women had been right. Jesus HAD risen from the grave.

• I suppose it could have been simply the fact that the tomb was empty. It had been guarded by Roman soldiers and sealed with the Roman seal. The soldiers should have still been there and the stone should have been sealing the opening. And above all else, the tomb should not have been empty. But it was. Maybe that was what had convinced John

• Maybe something else caught John’s attention. When Lazarus had risen from the dead, & came out of tomb, he was still wrapped in his grave clothes. But the cloth that had wrapped Jesus’ body was still there.

• Some have suggested that the face cloth appeared as if Jesus had simply slipped out and the cloth had collapsed. I don’t know if that’s true or not… but one thing is for certain: When Jesus left the tomb, His grave clothes didn’t go with Him.

• That may have been all it took for John to believe. As an aside, John tells us John 20:9 (regarding both he and Peter) “They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”

• John may not have known the prophecies from the Old Testament but he knew that Jesus had repeatedly said this would happen.

• Matthew 16 tells us that at the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James and JOHN were there as Jesus told them “he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

• Matthew 17, says that when they returned to Galilee, Jesus repeated: “They (would) kill him, and on the third day he would be raised to life."

• And when the disciples returned to Jerusalem for the last time Jesus again told them “They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!"

• And even Jesus’ enemies knew about the prophecy: Matthew 27:63-65

• It seems that everybody knew Jesus had declared he would rise from the grave on the 3rd day. So, John didn’t need Old Testament prophecies to convince him that Jesus was alive. He’d heard the words from Jesus’ own lips… and now the grave was empty.

• Now, Peter shows up at the tomb just a few moments after John did, but he’s the first one to go inside. Oddly, the text doesn’t tell us much about whether Peter believed or not. It simply says he went home.

• Years ago, a Christians singer, named Don Francisco wrote a song about this story and he told it from Peter’s point of view and it went like this: “We both ran toward the garden, then John ran on ahead. We found the stone and the empty tomb just the way that Mary’d said. But the winding sheet they’d wrapped Him in was just an empty shell. And how or where they’d taken Him was more than I could tell. Well something strange had happened there, but just what I did not know. John believed a miracle, but I just turned to go. Circumstance and speculation couldn’t lift me very high. Cause I’d seen them crucify Him, and then I watched Him die. Back inside the house again, the guilt and anguish came. Everything I’d promised Him just added to my shame. When at last it came to choices, I denied I knew His name. And even if He was alive… it wouldn’t be the same.” (He’s Alive, Don Francisco)

• Francisco’s take on this story was that Peter wanted to believe but resisted because of his own guilt.

• So we know John believed… and Peter may have wanted to, but the really odd story here, in John 20, is the one about Mary Magdalene.

• According to the other 3 gospels, there had actually been several women who had gone to the tomb that morning. There was Mary the mother of James, Joanna, Salome and maybe a few others. But John doesn’t mention the other women. He only tells us the story of Mary Magdalene.

• Why focus only on her?

• Well, I suspect John focused on Mary Magdalene because - while she saw the empty tomb and heard the angel say Jesus had risen; she saw all of this… and heard the words of the angel - but she REFUSED to believe.

• When she went to see the disciples she didn’t give the message of the angel: “He is risen!”

• What she did say was: John 20:2 "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!"

• It’s little wonder the disciples did not believe the other women….” Luke 24:9-11 Mary Magdalene’s testimony was different than theirs. She didn’t agree with them!

• But why didn’t she agree with them? She’d seen what they’d seen/heard what they heard. How could she possibly have experienced all that they had… but still refused to believe?

• Well, because maybe the whole thing seemed too far-fetched to her. When a person died… they were dead. It was kind of permanent that way. People didn’t rise from the dead… so Jesus couldn’t have risen from the grave.

• So Mary returns to the tomb. And when she went there, she went looking for a dead Jesus, not for a living one.

• And it’s there that Jesus appears to her.

• Oddly enough, the first person Jesus appeared to was Mary Magdalene. In fact Mark 16:9 tells us that very thing; “When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene…”

• But why appear to her first? There were all kinds of people Jesus could have appeared to, § He could have appeared to his mother Mary, the woman who’d given birth to Him. § Or He could have appeared to the OTHER women who’d gotten the message right! § Or He could simply have gone first to His Apostles. BUT He doesn’t do that. He appears to Mary Magdalene. The woman who couldn’t even believe an angel.

• Why? Maybe because Jesus meets us at our need.

• John 20:11-15

• You see, Mary Magdalene didn’t oppose the idea of Jesus rising from the dead she just didn’t think it would ever happen! She stood there – just like Big Bird on Sesame street – and in her mind was the thought: “When people die, they don’t come back!”

• And so, the grave was an empty hole in the ground. It was a place of hopelessness and futility. Death was the end of all existence. And the people she loved – who’d died – weren’t coming back.

• Jesus could have appeared to anyone He wanted to. But all those others believed He’d risen from the grave. He chose Mary Magdalene because she didn’t. And He chose her because she needed His message right then. She needed to be refilled with the hope of Christ’s victory over the grave.

• God’s made a promise through Isaiah 25:8 “he will swallow up death forever…”

• And Paul quoted that promise in I Corinthians 15:54 “Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die,[a] this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory.’”

• Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us that this was the very reason Jesus came: “Since the children have flesh and blood, (Jesus) too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death— that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

• When Jesus rose from the dead He came to break the bonds of sin and death. And – as Paul points out to us – this is the core of our very faith and of our salvation.

• I Corinthians 15:12-20

• In other words: Because Jesus rose from the grave, you and I will too. And that is the basis of our hope in this world.

• CLOSE: Dr. W. A Criswell, the preacher of the First Baptist Church of Dallas Texas, said on one occasion that while on an airplane flight he found himself seated beside a well-known college Bible professor.

• The man told Dr. Criswell about how his little boy had recently died. He said “our child had come home from school with a fever and we thought it was just one of those childhood things, but it was a very dangerous form of meningitis. The doctor said we cannot save your little boy. He’ll die.”

• And so this seminary professor, loving his son as he did, sat by his bedside while his son died.

• It was the middle of the day, and the little boy’s vision began to get cloudy and dark and he said: "Daddy, it’s getting dark isn’t it?"

• The professor said to his son, "Yes son it is getting dark, very dark." "Daddy, I guess it’s time for me to go to sleep isn’t it?" He said, "Yes, son, it’s time for you to go to sleep."

• The professor said his son had a way of fixing his pillow just so, and putting his head on his hands when he slept and he fixed his pillow like that and laid his head on his hands and said, "Good night, Daddy. I’ll see you in the morning." He then closed his eyes in death and stepped over into heaven.

• Dr. Criswell said the professor didn’t say anything for a while. He just looked out the window of that airplane for a long time. Then he turned back and he looked at Dr. Criswell with tears coming down his cheeks and he said, "Dr. Criswell, I can hardly wait till the morning."

• IT IS NOT TRUE that when people die, they don’t come back! I Thessalonians 4:13-14 tells us…

• That’s the promise Mary needed that day at the tomb. And that’s the promise we have – because Jesus rose from the grave - so shall we. That’s why we give an invitation at the end of every sermon…

Adapted from a sermon by Jeff Strite